Fall 1632-1636

She turned up at their doorsteps one summer morning, when the children were still asleep and Binet had just left. So Alanete welcomed her and because the young woman was looking for work she immediately offered to hire her as a handmaid. After all, looking after two small children while also taking care of your husband's affairs was anything but easy and taking somebody into service had been Alanete's  want for a couple of months already. Thus and so the young peasant girl was perfect. Her name was Albine and she came from a nearby village. Alanete didn't suspect a thing.

And so, Albine's new life began, far from her old family. Dressed like any other young girl serving in a worthy house, the new maid quickly adapted to what life in Paris meant. Except that she wasn't exactly a young girl and the advocate whose servant she became was no stranger for her. Fortunately for her, nobody, not even the advocate himself, seemed to notice her resemblance with the gypsy woman that was the mother of the girl a young merchant's son used to love more than ten years ago.

Her secret safe from everybody around her, Albine continued to work, taking care of the two small children, cleaning the house and cooking for the Boucher family, like that had been her plan from the very beginning.

Of course, nobody connected her presence with her master's recent sleepless nights.

Two days after her arrival, Binet's nightmare begun. It wasn't the fact that he was getting close to no sleep that really bothered him. It was the fact that every time he closed his eyes, he saw her ; heard her voice calling for him ; saw her hip gently swaying every time she bent to pick up one of the children, her thigh so carelessly uncovered every time she prepared for bed. It soon became an obsession, watching her almost every minute he spent awake.

It went like this for three more years, with him continuing to secretly watch her, with her continuing to pretend not to notice. Until one night, coming home late, with his wife and children asleep, Binet dared to open the door to Albine's room and she dared to open her eyes, letting him slip under the sheets beside her.

Six months later he woke up one morning only to learn that she was gone.